Intel CPU Roadmap Leaked – To Continue Using 14nm Well Into 2021

14nm “Rocket Lake” Alongside 10nm “Tiger Lake”

A massive leak of Intel‘s 2018 to 2021 roadmap has surfaced, courtesy of Tweakers.net. It shows not only the chip company’s plans for their desktop, but laptop processors as well.

Considering the underwhelming, and unusually quiet launch of the latest 9th gen CPUs, this is exciting. It also gives us a glimpse of how different the lineup would be for the next 3 years.

Apparently, the answer is “not so much”, and Intel’s new processors will still be made on 14nm. In comparison, AMD‘s upcoming 3rd Gen Ryzen‘s launching in a few months will be 7nm CPUs.

What Does the Intel CPU Desktop Roadmap Look Like?

According to Tweakers.net, the roadmaps were provided to them by an anonymous source. Although there is a DELL watermark on the mobile roadmap slide. So this might be from an Intel partner presentation.

In the desktop roadmap, we can see that Comet Lake succeeds Coffee Lake and Whiskey Lake in the H/G-series as well as the Y-series. Meanwhile, the mainstream S-series will swap out the Coffee Lake S refresh with Comet lake S, arriving at the same time as the H/G, U and Y variants around Q2 2020.

Comet Lake will be 14nm, available with up to 10-cores and will last until Q2 2021. After which, Intel is apparently releasing the 14nm Rocket Lake at the same time as the 10nm Tiger Lake. Although, it appears that Rocket Lake will still be the bulk, sporting up to 10-cores and will be available in U as well as S variants. It even has 14nm graphics and apparently will be available in BGA parts as well.

Meanwhile, the 10nm Tiger Lake only shows up on BGA parts. Meaning, it will not be available as a desktop socketed option. Furthermore, all Tiger Lake CPUs are quad-core, and even their arrival is not yet firm. Marked by TBD on the roadmap.

What About the Mobile CPU Roadmap?

As for mobile CPUs, 10nm options show up more frequently in this roadmap. Ice Lake U (15-28W WBGA) and Ice Lake Y (~5W BGA) for example show up as early as Q2 2019. These are only dual-core CPUs, but the quad-core Tiger Lake U (15-27W WBGA) and Tiger Lake Y (~5W BGA) will arrive in Q2 2020.

During that period, Intel will still use 14nm Comet Lake H for 8-core and 10-core CPUs in their H and G-series (45W, >65W BGA).